


Led Astray

by ladygrange



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: F/M, Mild Kink, Oral Sex, but really just a ramble of a day between lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 21:17:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16860454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygrange/pseuds/ladygrange





	Led Astray

The oversized brim of her hat shields her from the brunt of the sun, and her gloves keep thorns from catching her wrists. The garden is calm under noon; it doesn’t make a sound except for the smooth snip of her shears. She places wild roses in her basket with special care for marigolds resting on one half. From the corner of her eye, barely visible, she notices a familiar stride approaching. Long-legged, a feline grace in the step; his collared shirt blows slightly in the breeze.

“Hello you,” she says with a smile. “Finished or frustrated?”

Jimmy leans down for a quick kiss on her cheek. “Neither, just needed a break.”

She’s seen him periodically, ever since the photographer had arrived earlier in the day, but not at ease with the intrusion. Jimmy’s still wearing his painted t-shirt with the matching long-sleeved one outside it. The iridescent material shimmers in the light and almost matches the look of excitement on his face. She steps back, holding one hand to the back of her hat, and looks up at him.

“Has the photographer gone?” she asks.

“Yes, finally,” Jimmy says. “And the tapes from the Garden have just arrived.”

She beams at him before cutting off a few more roses. “Now you just have to finish the last of the installations.”

She meanders down the stone pathway, where hollyhocks line the edge of the house. Jimmy keeps close and talks enthusiastically about the furnishing process. Neither of them had expected Plumpton’s sloping, slightly cramped attic to have spectacular acoustics, but the sound thrived there. Perfect for a studio, he’d said when they had first toured the house. She gathers a bunch of neighboring hollyhocks while Jimmy runs through the next order of equipment coming in.

She passes her basket and shears to him. “Hold these for me.”

Jimmy takes each one and immediately grabs her shoulder when she balances on one foot to take her sandal off.

“Have you listened to any of the tapes yet?” she asks, thumping the bottom of the sole. A rock tumbles out. “Does the sound work like you’d hoped?”

“It’s a pain, darling,” he says. “But it’s the best ones of those sorts.”

She takes her basket back. “Yes, but do _you_ like it?”

“I’d like it better if you’d come have a look, and maybe a listen.”

She gives him a suspicious frown and makes the left curve down a short flight of brick steps. “Haven’t we been here before?”

Jimmy takes his place in front of her, walking backwards and squinting at the sun.

“You’re an audio enthusiast, my darling, I’m surprised you’re not in the attic by moonlight trying to work out the exact proportions in the mixing desk.”

She considers letting him walk right into an upcoming bush but nods her chin in warning.

“I’m at your service. But I’m afraid the rates are steep.”

“Careful, darling-” he glances behind him at her warning and sidesteps the bush. “I might take you up on that.”

She cocks a brow. “I’m sure you will.”

She stops at a cluster of honeysuckle to clip a small bunch. The overlong sleeve on her shirt has come unravelled, the ends stuck in the dense growth, and Jimmy intervenes.

“You know,” he says, untangling her, “there’s a groundskeeper to do this for you, darling.”

She watches him roll her sleeve back up. “If you’re implying my gardening skills are subpar, you’d be right,” she says smartly and takes her arm back. “But the day’s too lovely to spend inside.”

Jimmy hums and loops an arm around her waist. “Yes, and apparently perfect for nicking one of my shirts.”

She grins and nudges his side. “You weren’t using it, besides that tomato stain is never coming out so it’s just as well you don’t have it anymore.”

His old khaki button down, with its two large breast pockets, is tucked neatly into her jeans, concealing the faded red splotch. Jimmy picks a short stem of honeysuckle and places it in one of the front pockets then shakes his head.

“You look like a country lass,” he says with a grin. “If the rains come too soon, that hat could save most of the village.”

“Watch it,” she says, playfully brandishing her shears. “Don’t make me use these.”

Jimmy steps close, to the tips of the blades, and gives her his best tragic look. “You wound me, darling.”

She walks around him with a playful last warning look, to the patch of lavender growing near other herbs, their stalks waving in the wind coming off the water.

“I meant to ask you sooner,” she begins. “Has the veterinarian rung yet? The swans are still behaving oddly.”

Jimmy shakes his head and crouches beside her. “Not yet. But I did make arrangements for the stables. A man wants to put up his horses.”

She gives him a look of disbelief. “ _You_ went near horses?”

“Hmm, and even approached one with an apple. Don’t look so shocked, darling.”

She stands from the lavender and Jimmy follows suit. “We’re turning into a farm, Jimmy. Are you sure you choose the right profession?”

He laughs. “I believe you’re the one who wanted goats, darling.”

She grins at him as they pass underneath the broad expanse of windows on the house. Light strikes off the squares and onto the grass in bright patterns. The path between the stone and the moat’s water is narrow there, they walk in single file before reaching the weeping willow at the water's edge. Jimmy lounges against the tree while she admires the collections of bluebells and a small cluster of snapdragons nearby.

“Do you know all of the flora, my darling?”

She picks a small bluebell and twirls it in her fingers. “Hardly, but Lutyens left a manual and I’ve flipped through it. It’s a dense read, though.”

She takes up a few more of the blooms then surveys the colors surrounding them. White foxglove and lilacs are the easiest to pick out from the rows of flowers that from the house almost to the water’s edge. Sun warms the colors, makes the vibrant and sweet-smelling. She considers calling Pat, the caretaker, later on, and asking about the layout. Jimmy’s voice pulls her from her head.

“How did you manage to find the manual?” he asks. “The library’s in complete shambles.”

She waves that off. “I organized part of it two days ago, I couldn’t sleep.”

Jimmy stands straight, a brow furrowed as she picks a couple of cowslips gathered around the border of the garden.

“You had that dream again?”

“Yeah,” she scrunches her nose up and meets him under the shade. “Stranger this time, you know, with the stuff...” The flat of her palm cuts vaguely through her sentence.

Jimmy searches her face. “Feeling articulate, darling?”

She purses her lips. “I think the heat’s taking a toll.”

“Come and sit with me, darling.” He grabs her hand and pulls her in. “Take a break.”

She grins and tugs her arm away but he won’t let go. “Don’t you have to get back to the studio? I thought you’d planned out the whole day.”

“I’ve changed my mind.” He shrugs and reaches into her basket for a pink rose, setting it gingerly between his teeth. “Come on, darling. It’ll be fun.”

The words are garbled and coupled with a suggestive wiggle of his brows. But they earn a laugh, and she takes the flower away, giving him a short kiss in return.

“I think I can manage it,” she says against his lips.

They end up on the opposite side of the moat. She’s half distracted in a book and the warbling drone of Jimmy’s hurdy-gurdy, along with the confused answer of the birds. Resting on her stomach, her sandals and hat kicked off, she props her elbows on the red woven blanket Jimmy fetched earlier. She thinks she could fall asleep here, her eyelids drift down, losing focus on the text, lulled into the melody. She follows the hollow white diamonds stitched across the front of the fabric and attempts to hum along but the song abruptly cuts off. She turns her head to look at Jimmy.

“Why’d you stop?”

He’s fiddling with a handheld recorder. “This wasn’t on, and I want to get your voice on the recording.”

She quickly sits up and snatched it away. “Oh no, you don’t.”

“You’re very elusive, my darling,” he says with a frown. “If I hadn’t bribed your family for a picture I’d begin to doubt your existence.”

She stashes the recorder underneath her hat and settles back in her book. “That’s how it should be.”

He sighs but picks the tune up again; the sound is just as hypnotic and she rocks her feet back and forth behind her to the rhythm. Jimmy transitions into a different piece, this one familiar, she recognizes the simple birdsong that echoes every morning, worked effortlessly out of the instrument.

“I like that one best,” she says absently, turning a page. “It’s recognizable but... different.”

He doesn’t reply and she hears him shift on the blanket. A moment later and she feels Jimmy’s hand reach out for her swaying foot, running a finger on the ticklish underside, and turns over to her back.

“What was that for?”

He sets the hurdy-gurdy away and crawls on top of her. “For dodging my every attempt to get you down somehow.”

She rolls her eyes and catches some of the curls falling in his face. “Says the man who disdains the media.”

He grins. “With good reason, my darling.”

“Uh huh.”

He nuzzles her face and plops a few kisses along her jaw before sitting up and grabbing the acoustic guitar he’d brought. She’s recently changed the strings for it, their tips still long and sticking out from the tuning pegs. Gazing through the sycamore’s low branches, out to the water, she listens to him tune each string.

“Who taught you to play the hurdy-gurdy?”

He strums a chord before answering. “Nobody, really. It’s tricky but mostly my partial incompetence, darling.”

“It suits you,” she chuckles, “and this place.”

He hums in agreement and picks another song. She’s completely distracted this time, turning her book over and thinking aimless, lazy thoughts. She wonders how they’d ever lived anywhere else, without the tranquility of Plumpton, without the surrounding park, protected and at ease. She follows the paddle of one of the swans across the water and out to the other side, shaking off before waddling through the bulrushes. She doesn’t even notice when Jimmy stops playing and nearly jumps when his hand appears beside her head, followed soon after by his curious face. He puts his cheek next to hers.

“What are you watching so intently?”

“Andrew looks sad.”

“You never should’ve named them, darling. They aren’t emotionally complex.”

She gives him a look. “Don’t think I didn’t see you outside a couple of days ago trying to pet one of them.”

He tightens his arm around her and pecks her nose. “Then you’ll know they aren’t the most affectionate birds.”

“He might resent us for having duck that one night.”

Jimmy’s laugh tickles her ear, and he begins kissing her cheek. “Could be, darling. But you know, Zeus took the form of a swan once.”

“Yes,” she says between kisses, “for sexual purposes, and it didn’t end well.”

His hand slips down her back, to the seat of her jeans. “True, but it made for highly erotic art.”

She pulls back, her hands holding his cheeks, thumbs at the close grain where he’d shaved. “How did we get on this subject?”

“I think it was your doing, my darling,” Jimmy says innocently. “You get more deviant by the day.”

She snickers and pulls him over her. “That’s _your_ fetish, Jim-” A pained squeak replaces the last syllable of his name when her bottom meets the ground.

Jimmy makes a sympathetic sound and carefully rolls her back over. She rests her chin in her bent elbows while he reaches underneath her hip to unbutton her jeans. Fingers curled under the waistband, he takes his time, his lips pressing gentle words into her skin. Raised welts have mellowed to blue bruising and cloudy greens. She flinches when Jimmy trails kisses across the sore evidence of twenty-five strikes on her ass. She remembers every stroke, then the tight fit as he’d taken her from behind. Heat spreads between her legs at the memory. His hands frame her bottom as he gives each cheek a wet kiss. Her neatly folded jeans appear beside her shoes and hat a moment later. She watches as he folds his sleeves up and reaches for the forgotten tape recorder under her hat. Jimmy gives her a business like look as he switches the device on.

“Tuck in your knees,” he instructs.

She does, exposing her bottom and the growing dampness between her legs, resisting the urge to cover herself with her shirt. Her heart picks up when Jimmy sets the recorder right side up at the edge of the blanket.

“Are you up for it, darling?” he asks, finger over the record button.

She looks at his face, awareness filling the space of her silence. She nods and the clicks the button. Jimmy smiles at her and places her book just before her arms, pressing the pages down for her to see.

“I want you to read for me,” he says gently, petting her hair. “Keep going until I say so, unless you’d like another punishment.”

He reaches behind her to caress the marks on her ass and she quickly nods again. A benevolent smile spreads across his face before his takes his position, kneeling at the raised bottom. The crushed velvet of his shirt brushes against her thighs, followed swiftly by his hands, pulling them apart and exposing her to his touch.

“Go on,” he says. “Start reading.”

Jimmy’s mouth hunts for sensitive, reflexive spots, while hers form words from the book, but the narrative is lost to her ears, caught up in the fingers that graze her inner thighs. She shivers when he spreads her liquids around her clit, an ‘r’ fumbling against its vowel. He pauses and she nearly whimpers.

“Sorry?” he says. “I didn’t catch that, darling.”

She repeats the sentence and earns two fingers pressed against her folds. A paragraph closes off and she wants to grind her hips down into his face; the teasing laps against her sex clearly heard under her voice. She turns the page and Jimmy cups her bottom to bring her against his lips. She knows better than to succumb to the gathering pleasure, but when he pushes his tongue inside her, she breaks off with a cry. Instantly, a hand closes around her hair and drags her back on her knees. She can feel his hand at her back, reaching for his zipper. His mouth meets her ear, his voice a searing whisper.

“Open your mouth,” he orders, “and do not touch yourself.”

Jimmy stands up and steps around to face her, his jeans already pushed halfway down, his hands going to her head. In a split second, her mouth is full and her palms are forced to his thighs to keep her balance. Saliva floods her when his tip presses against the back of her throat, her nose pushed against his abdomen. His fingers dig into her scalp and she cuts her eyes up to him, pleading in her look. Jimmy’s lips curl and he shakes his head in denial. She begins running her tongue along his underside, palming his thigh and attempting to pull her head back for a deep breath. Jimmy doesn’t allow it, instead, he grabs fistfulls of her hair and keeps her still for his thrusts. Despite the eyes trained on her, she slowly brings her hand between his legs to the spot that has him cursing loudly. He pulls her head back, causing a thick string of spit to fall along her chin. She tries not to grin at the look on his face but Jimmy catches her. He steps back to remove both his shirts and kicks off his jeans.

“You’re proud of yourself, my darling?” he asks, settling on his knees before her.

She shrugs. “I think it’ll sound fantastic on the recording.”

He huffs a laugh and takes her face in his hands. “Deviant.”

She hangs onto his wrist during the kiss and squirms against his body, the heat accumulating under her shirt making her impatient. She wants to feel him. At the insistent press, Jimmy pushes her down to her back. She endures the slow uncovering, each button slipping out and followed by a kiss to her sternum, her left breast, fourth rib, and ending at her belly button. Jimmy frees her arms and brings her legs around his waist. She sighs when his erection slides between her sex. Light throws shadows across his eyelashes and sends the green into vibrant clarity.

“Ready,” he murmurs, brushing her fringe back.

She raises up to bite his chin, a small payback, but satisfying, and closes her hands over his shoulder, over the flex and stretch of his skin. Her mouth falls open at the fullness and a small cry punctuates his name. Jimmy brushes his lips across her nose and teases her with a shallow thrust.

“I think I want you more than I did the day before, my darling,” he says.

Her heels slide over his bottom in response, fitting to the lowest curve and hooking there to pull him in, deeper than before. A gruff sound escapes him and his hips jerk involuntarily. Jimmy sucks at the delicate skin below her ear and reaches for her leg, bending it between them.

“So needy,” he admonishes.

Pressed apart, her knee slides across his collarbone and his hand holds her fast between their bodies. She can’t form a decent thought. Jimmy kisses the inside of her leg and bears his hips down. A shocked, choked sound falls from her lips at the motion. She wants to writhe beneath the penetration, but Jimmy forces her to accept his pace, clutching her leg tighter with every thrust. It’s an agony held back, near bursting. Her head tilts and Jimmy cups her face with his free hand, plopping warm kisses along her jaw, his thumb grazing her chin, nose brushing a moan against her neck. Her belly tightens and her muscles clamp around him helplessly.

“You’re almost there, aren’t you, darling?” he says through heavy breaths.

She whimpers, dazed from the need to come, and tries to focus on his pink lips, the sound of his voice. But when Jimmy cinches his belly against her, rocking into her until her clit swells against him, her sight blurs. Her breathing begins to match his, each slow and deliberate push making her exhale. Pleasure wells up in an unfamiliar and overwhelming urgency; she meets his eyes with an expression near tears.

“Jimmy,” she gasps. “I’m going to-”

Blood rushes in her ears, drowning out the thin end of her voice. The pleasure spills over into desperate lurches of her hips. She arches into his neck, needing something to hold onto, and Jimmy’s forearm supports her, clutching under her shoulder to keep her in place. She knows from his sloppy, wet movements, and the hitch in his breath, that he’s close. From a vague awareness, she can feel the hot pour of him inside her, his groan echoing around them, his grip on her body tenacious as he crumbles on top of her.

She has the strange feeling of surfacing from a dream; a tug from weightlessness to wakefulness. Black lines stripe and frizz across her vision: his hair. The strands wave against the brilliant hue of the sky. She turns her nose into his head and breathes, deep and sure. Heart and lungs steady out, the breeze drops into stillness, and the distant knock of a woodpecker sounds nearby. His hips are secure between her thighs, warm liquid trickling down her inner thighs. Jimmy makes a move to pull out but she links her hands and feet around him.

“Wait,” she says quietly. “Wait...”

She can feel his smile on her neck and makes her hold tighter. Jimmy closes his arms above her head, his fingers tracing idle patterns in her hair. Sun-warmed and tired, she relaxes beneath his weight, beneath the solid thump of his pulse at her chest, his breathing over her skin. In the patterns of circulation, she finds her chest full, her mind pleasantly empty. When Jimmy raises his head to look at her, she only blinks slowly.

Jimmy weaves a hand through her hair and kisses her, once, twice, her lips sticking to his for a second before releasing. He studies the blushed ridge on her cheeks and the muddy color of her irises in his way. She follows that way, the darting of his eyes, the quick creasing when he smiles at her; a silent exchange that requires nothing, gives in equal measure.


End file.
